1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to data processing including automated methods of collecting, categorizing, indexing, storing and retrieving large amounts of data from widely diverse sources. It includes advances in the art of screening, refining and formatting data and an automated method of storing and retrieving the refined data by location, industry, document number, etc. and getting the retrieved documents to the requesting party.
2. Description of the Related Art
The explosion of knowledge the past twenty years has resulted in thousands of storage devices in diverse locations throughout the world that contain millions of documents in virtually all fields of endeavor. In addition, there are thousands of locations connected to the internet that make available other millions of documents relating to information, intellectual properties, educated opinions, educational material, and similar assets, hereinafter broadly referred to as xe2x80x9cDataxe2x80x9d. The development of economical high-speed computers with high volume storage capacity led to an explosion of the information technology industry. A natural outgrowth of this development was the Internet and Web Sites that linked thousands of databases and made millions of documents available to the Internet and other public data storage and transport systems. Techniques for polling and retrieving data contained in these databases are well known in the industry. In addition, the capability of using Key Words to search through the Internet and other data transport media through various types of search engines such as Web Browser, Yahoo, Google, GoTo, Inktome, Alta-Vista and others is also well known.
Virtually every library, college, research organization, hospital, political entity, weather bureau, large business etc. have locations on the Internet. Most have made large amounts of data available to the public. The net effect is a huge amount of data available in the public domain that covers virtually every phase of human endeavor. Another huge reservoir of data is available from thousands of sources for a fee for access to the database. A third, and largely untapped source is printed matter, professional publications, magazines, libraries etc. The business world has long recognized that information and knowledge is power and has tangible value. We use that power to gain a competitive edge and/or reduce operating costs. The cost of searching, downloading, screening, storing, formatting and making the intelligence available to humans has become very expensive. In addition, the sheer mass of data dictates long hours of downloading, reading and rewriting to sort out what is needed from the extraneous data. For an individual or business trying to gather, store and use information, the mass of data has become overwhelming.
Because of the high cost of collecting, storing and retrieving data, it has a negative value until it is available to humans for intuitive analysis. The following analogy will make this fact clear. Consider a library book, where a human, highly competent in some specific area of knowledge, reduces his knowledge to writing and publishes a book. If no other human knows where the book is, there is no transfer of information and the book is of little value. Eventually it finds its way into a library where it is categorized, indexed by title, subject matter, and author and assigned to a specific aisle, shelf location and shelf position. A person searching for this information may have had to search through many libraries, bookstores, publishing houses, industrial publications and educational institutions before finding what he/she needed. This search grows more expensive and time consuming as the number of databases and volume of information grows exponentially. When the book is located, either electronically or verbally, the library has an organized method of locating the information requested. The applicant is told that the information is stored in aisle xx, cabinet xxx, shelf x, and is given the title name. These activities are expensive and time consuming and therefore have a negative economic value until the applicant is able to use the information contained in the book. The Supermine(trademark) system makes the collection, storage and distribution of data economical and readily available.
In addition to knowledge being power, another axiom of the business world is that time is money. Where there was once a scarcity of information and data there is now a huge glut of material on virtually every subject one can name. When the need arises for a business to obtain facts relating to a specific problem or objective, employees are required to search hundreds of sources and spend hours screening, reading and collating to find the information needed. More hours are needed to assemble the data into usable form. Several days spent in this process may mean the difference between success and failure.
A need has thus developed for a system of economically utilizing the vast amount of intelligence and knowledge that exists worldwide. This need entails a means of gathering the data in mass amounts, screening, filtering, categorizing, indexing and storing it with minimal human intervention. In addition, a means of making the data available by location, type information, industry application, and by the level of detail requested by humans is needed. Further, the data must be made readily available to people from widely diverse locations using different languages, and it must be done without time consuming clerical operations. That capability does not exist in industry today.
The agriculture industry is used in this disclosure to provide a simplistic explanation of the design and flexibility of the Supermine(trademark) system. However, a comprehensive world-wide system could be built by coordinating the Supermine(trademark) system as described in this disclosure with the developing Satellite Global Positioning System. By using the concepts taught in this disclosure, the Mercator Projection Charts could be used as the basis for constructing Supermine(trademark) system Location Templates using Latitude and Longitude data from the Global Positioning System to describe precise locations instead of the names of Nations, States and Cities. This system provides a virtually unlimited potential for collecting, classifying, indexing, storing and retrieving data that can be efficiently associated with precise locations. This disclosure teaches methods of associating any industrial data with any of these precise locations. The methods of accomplishing this and the unique flexibility of the Supermine(trademark) System is described and demonstrated in the disclosure. The present invention discloses a system that solves many of the problems inherent in the present state of the art.
In one embodiment, the present invention provides a method of storing data objects in a data warehouse including receiving a data object, identifying a geographic location to which the data object is related, associating a numeric representation with the geographic location, identifying an industry to which the data object is related, associating a numeric representation with the industry and indexing the data object in the data warehouse based on a header number, wherein the header number includes the numeric representations of the geographic location and industry. One feature of this embodiment may be providing a location template having a plurality of columns, the columns corresponding to nations, states and cities. Further, the embodiment may include searching the data object for a term stored in a column of the location template, the term representing a specific nation, state, or city. Another feature of this embodiment may be providing an industry template having a plurality of columns, the columns corresponding to industry names and industry functions. Yet another feature may be searching the data object for a term stored in a column of the industry template, the term representing a specific industry name or industry function. Still another feature may be storing the numeric representations of the geographic location and the industry in specific slots in a register designated for the header number. Other features of this embodiment include providing location templates associated with different languages and providing industry templates associated with different languages. This embodiment has other features, such as the header number including a unique document number or a numeric representation of a date on which the data object was received. The next feature may be storing the data object in a location of the data warehouse that is associated with the header number.
In a second embodiment, the invention discloses a method of retrieving a data object stored in a data warehouse including receiving a request for the data object that is stored in the data warehouse, parsing the request to identify a geographic location to which the data object is related, associating a numeric representation with the geographic location, parsing the request to identify an industry to which the data object is related, associating a numeric representation with the industry, generating a header number that includes the numeric representations of the geographic location and the industry, searching a header number index of the data warehouse for the header number, identifying the data object based on the header number, and retrieving the data object from the data warehouse. One feature of this embodiment may be providing a location template having a plurality of columns, the columns corresponding to nations, states and cities and searching the request for a term stored in a column of the location template, the term representing a specific nation, state or city. A second feature may be providing location templates associated with different languages and searching the request by utilizing a location template associated with a specific language identified in the request. Another feature may be providing an industry template having a plurality of columns, the columns corresponding to industry names and industry functions and searching the request for a term stored in a column of the industry template, the term representing a specific industry name or industry function. Yet another feature of this embodiment may be providing industry templates associated with different languages and searching the request by utilizing an industry template associated with a specific language identified in the request. This embodiment may also include the feature of searching the request for a first matching term in a first list of terms, associating a first numeric representation with the first matching term, and searching the request for a second matching term in a second list of terms, wherein the searching for the second matching term is limited to a subset of terms, the subset of the second list of terms being associated with the first matching term. The next feature may include the first list of terms comprising a column corresponding to nations in a location template, and the second list of terms comprising a column corresponding to cities in a location template; or the first list of terms comprises a column corresponding to industry names in an industry template, and the second list of terms comprises a column corresponding to industry functions in an industry template. This embodiment may also include a feature wherein the header number further includes a unique document number or a numeric representation of a date on which the data object was received. The next feature of this embodiment may be retrieving the data object from a location of the data warehouse that is associated with the header number.
In a third embodiment, the invention discloses a computer system comprising a microprocessor, a storage device coupled to the microprocessor, the storage device adapted to store software routines, and a software routine stored on the storage device to be executed by the microprocessor, wherein the software routine comprises instructions to perform a method of storing data objects in a data warehouse. Said method comprises, receiving a data object, identifying a geographic location to which the data object is related, associating a numeric representation with the geographic location, identifying an industry to which the data object is related, associating a numeric representation with the industry, and indexing the data object in the data warehouse based on a header number, the header number including the numeric representations of the geographic location and the industry.
In a fourth embodiment, the invention provides a computer system comprising a microprocessor, a storage device coupled to the microprocessor, the storage device adapted to store software routines, and a software routine stored on the storage device to be executed by the microprocessor, wherein the software routine comprises instructions to perform a method of retrieving a data object stored in a data warehouse. Said method comprises receiving a request for the data object that is stored in the data warehouse, parsing the request to identify a geographic location to which the data object is related, associating a numeric representation with the geographic location, parsing the request to identify an industry to which the data object is related, associating a numeric representation with the industry, generating a header number that includes the numeric representations of the geographic location and the industry, searching a header number index of the data warehouse for the header number, identifying the data object based on the header number, and retrieving the data object from the data warehouse.
In another embodiment, the invention discloses a storage device readable by a machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform a method of storing data objects in a data warehouse, said method comprising receiving a data object, identifying a geographic location to which the data object is related, associating a numeric representation with the geographic location, identifying an industry to which the data object is related, associating a numeric representation with the industry, and indexing the data object in the data warehouse based on a header number, the header number including the numeric representations of the geographic location and the industry.
In still another embodiment, the invention provides a storage device readable by a machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform a method of retrieving a data object stored in a data warehouse, said method comprising receiving a request for the data object that is stored in the data warehouse, parsing the request to identify a geographic location to which the data object is related, associating a numeric representation with the geographic location, parsing the request to identify an industry to which the data object is related, associating a numeric representation with the industry, generating a header number that includes the numeric representations of the geographic location and the industry, searching a header number index of the data warehouse for the header number, identifying the data object based on the header number, and retrieving the data object from the data warehouse.
In yet another embodiment, the invention discloses a method of operating an electronic switch including receiving a plurality of data objects, storing the data objects in a plurality of data comparitors, receiving a first signal indicating that all of the comparitors are busy, receiving an additional data object, providing a holding area for data objects, storing the additional data object in the holding area, receiving a second signal indicating that a comparitor is free, and storing the additional data object in the comparitor.